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A review by colleensreadingadventures
Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
When I first started reading Dial A for Aunties I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to pee my pants..thankfully I did not. I got excited as hell thinking I scored another Finlay Donovan book with dead bodies and humor. A perfect combination! 😁 And with some added Asian Auntie flair..sounds like a good time to me! My excitement did not last long though and after the first couple of chapters I felt a bit deflated.
Meddy’s love life is in the toilet. She’s still pining over Nathan her college love and won’t give any other man a real try. In order to help Meddy find love her mother signs her up on a dating website and springs the news that she has found the perfect man. In fact they have a date to meet that night. Who cares that Meddy’s mom has been talking to Jake for weeks pretending to be Meddy or that Jake has never even posted a picture. Meddy’s mom is sure he’s just shy and doesn’t want her to be focused on looks alone. Somehow even with all this Meddy’s mom and 3 Aunties talk her into taking a leap of faith and meeting up with Jake, the mysterious rich bachelor, who has at least captured Meddy’s moms heart.
Their date goes horribly wrong and Meddy accidentally kills her man. And who does she call to help clean up the mess? You guessed it…The Aunties. They come up with the perfect plan to protect Meddy. They’ll hide his body inside Big Aunties cake fridge until the biggest wedding of their careers is over and dispose of the body. But Big Aunties assistant (who’s in the dark), being a little too diligent has the cooler with Jake’s body sent to the island wedding destination.
What ensues next is a comedy of errors as Meddy and Aunties try and conceal the cooler without raising suspicion as well as taking care of all the bride and grooms needs. Exasperated Meddy is not sure if things could get any worse as the Aunties, after decades old rivalries decides today is the day to out do each other. Taking matters in to their own hands no matter how bad their ideas may be. Such as youngest Auntie, number 4 plying the groomsmen with Absinthe to cloud their memories…which may or may not have worked out perfectly. 😁 Throwing an even bigger wrench into their rapidly spiraling plans, Meddy’s ex Nathan makes an unexpected appearance. How can she think with Nathan, the one that got away there to distract her every thought? Instead of concentrating on how to dispose of Jake, her current man problem, she’s thinking of how much she’d like to pull Nathan into her room for an Afternoon Delight.
Will the big day end up with a wedding or with the Chan’s behind bars?
My main problem with Dial A for Aunties is that is started out strong but fizzled fast. There were so many humorous moments. But there were even more times when the humor fell flat.
I loved the Aunties. They all had such great big lovable personalities! I think I liked them even more than Meddy. I especially liked Meddy’s mom. She was just so adorable in her ignorance, especially in matters of modern communication. When Jake messaged Meddy he had a delicious 🍆 for her she thought he wanted to cook her dinner. 🤣 I wanted to give her a huge hug a lot of the time. But that’s also the other problem I have. I really didn’t feel a whole lot for Meddy or Nathan. Nathan was way to wimpy for my tastes. And the fact that he didn’t fight for Meddy at all in college…and I do mean at ALL, really irked me. Who is with someone for 3 years and everything is going great, and then bam she throws out a lame excuse and he walks away without trying to discuss it whatsoever?! No one ever!
So much of this was unbelievable. The most believable thing was Meddy and Aunties hiding a corpse all day. And that’s pretty unbelievable. Obviously you have to suspend some belief in order to read this but it was just over the top in a lot of ways.
I was getting tired of the Aunties rivalry. It went on way to long. Explain it once maybe twice, I will get the picture. But it just went on and on and on.
What I did like was learning a bit about Chinese-Indonesian culture. The beginning of the book Jesse Q. Sutanto writes the readers a letter explaining the book is a lover letter to her family and breaks down a little of their history.
I also learned about some of the Chinese-Indonesian wedding traditions. Like the Tea Ceremony before the marriage ceremony. The bride and groom serve tea to their elders. And in return their elders present them with gifts of gold or money. I can definitely get behind that! 😁
I loved that even with all the rivalry the Chan’s were there for each other through thick and thin. They might do it fighting but you could still feel the love when all was said and done.
There were definitely parts of Dial A for Aunties I really liked, but I’m not sure if it was enough to continue on with Four Aunties and a Wedding. I’ll have to mull that over and see how I feel later on.
Mild trigger to consider. I was picturing this as mostly a pretty clean book. And in most aspects it is, except for some of the language. It didn’t offended me, I have no problem with bad language unless it’s over the top. I just wasn’t expecting it. Others who do have an issue with language might want to be aware going in this is not squeaky clean. 😁
Meddy’s love life is in the toilet. She’s still pining over Nathan her college love and won’t give any other man a real try. In order to help Meddy find love her mother signs her up on a dating website and springs the news that she has found the perfect man. In fact they have a date to meet that night. Who cares that Meddy’s mom has been talking to Jake for weeks pretending to be Meddy or that Jake has never even posted a picture. Meddy’s mom is sure he’s just shy and doesn’t want her to be focused on looks alone. Somehow even with all this Meddy’s mom and 3 Aunties talk her into taking a leap of faith and meeting up with Jake, the mysterious rich bachelor, who has at least captured Meddy’s moms heart.
Their date goes horribly wrong and Meddy accidentally kills her man. And who does she call to help clean up the mess? You guessed it…The Aunties. They come up with the perfect plan to protect Meddy. They’ll hide his body inside Big Aunties cake fridge until the biggest wedding of their careers is over and dispose of the body. But Big Aunties assistant (who’s in the dark), being a little too diligent has the cooler with Jake’s body sent to the island wedding destination.
What ensues next is a comedy of errors as Meddy and Aunties try and conceal the cooler without raising suspicion as well as taking care of all the bride and grooms needs. Exasperated Meddy is not sure if things could get any worse as the Aunties, after decades old rivalries decides today is the day to out do each other. Taking matters in to their own hands no matter how bad their ideas may be. Such as youngest Auntie, number 4 plying the groomsmen with Absinthe to cloud their memories…which may or may not have worked out perfectly. 😁 Throwing an even bigger wrench into their rapidly spiraling plans, Meddy’s ex Nathan makes an unexpected appearance. How can she think with Nathan, the one that got away there to distract her every thought? Instead of concentrating on how to dispose of Jake, her current man problem, she’s thinking of how much she’d like to pull Nathan into her room for an Afternoon Delight.
Will the big day end up with a wedding or with the Chan’s behind bars?
My main problem with Dial A for Aunties is that is started out strong but fizzled fast. There were so many humorous moments. But there were even more times when the humor fell flat.
I loved the Aunties. They all had such great big lovable personalities! I think I liked them even more than Meddy. I especially liked Meddy’s mom. She was just so adorable in her ignorance, especially in matters of modern communication. When Jake messaged Meddy he had a delicious 🍆 for her she thought he wanted to cook her dinner. 🤣 I wanted to give her a huge hug a lot of the time. But that’s also the other problem I have. I really didn’t feel a whole lot for Meddy or Nathan. Nathan was way to wimpy for my tastes. And the fact that he didn’t fight for Meddy at all in college…and I do mean at ALL, really irked me. Who is with someone for 3 years and everything is going great, and then bam she throws out a lame excuse and he walks away without trying to discuss it whatsoever?! No one ever!
So much of this was unbelievable. The most believable thing was Meddy and Aunties hiding a corpse all day. And that’s pretty unbelievable. Obviously you have to suspend some belief in order to read this but it was just over the top in a lot of ways.
I was getting tired of the Aunties rivalry. It went on way to long. Explain it once maybe twice, I will get the picture. But it just went on and on and on.
What I did like was learning a bit about Chinese-Indonesian culture. The beginning of the book Jesse Q. Sutanto writes the readers a letter explaining the book is a lover letter to her family and breaks down a little of their history.
I also learned about some of the Chinese-Indonesian wedding traditions. Like the Tea Ceremony before the marriage ceremony. The bride and groom serve tea to their elders. And in return their elders present them with gifts of gold or money. I can definitely get behind that! 😁
I loved that even with all the rivalry the Chan’s were there for each other through thick and thin. They might do it fighting but you could still feel the love when all was said and done.
There were definitely parts of Dial A for Aunties I really liked, but I’m not sure if it was enough to continue on with Four Aunties and a Wedding. I’ll have to mull that over and see how I feel later on.
Mild trigger to consider. I was picturing this as mostly a pretty clean book. And in most aspects it is, except for some of the language. It didn’t offended me, I have no problem with bad language unless it’s over the top. I just wasn’t expecting it. Others who do have an issue with language might want to be aware going in this is not squeaky clean. 😁
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing
Moderate: Death
Minor: Drug use